When U.S. Army Col. Gregory Parker returned home to Alabama from the war in Iraq in 2017, he expected to retire.

Instead, the former Fairfield police officer found himself looking for a job. It turned out Fairfield had not paid into his pension and retirement during the 13 years he served the Army in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Camp Shelby in Mississippi, he said.

“I was under the impression that they were paying into my retirement,” Parker, 57, told AL.com. “Next thing I know, I found out they filed for bankruptcy. They didn’t tell me.

“Knowing that a person is serving their country and something like this happens, to me, it’s like, who could do something to a veteran like that?” he added. “It’s a slap in the face to me.”

Parker is one of nine former employees, companies, government agencies and other creditors trying to get back millions of dollars they say Fairfield owes.

The city of just under 10,000 people west of Birmingham filed for bankruptcy in 2020, with just 26 of its 210 creditors reporting $28 million in unpaid debts.

But signs of Fairfield’s economic decline began at least five years before, long before the Covid pandemic, when the city couldn’t keep up with its bills for employee payroll and other public services. Fairfield rationed gasoline for city vehicles and even let people out of the city jail because they couldn’t afford to feed them. Then, in late 2015, U.S. Steel laid off 1,100 workers. Three months later, Walmart left town, laying off 300 employees and leaving the city as a food desert when the Supercenter closed.

In February 2015, Fairfield reported $1 million in the bank and $8 million of debt.

With the old Western Hills Mall now near empty, the city’s main retailers today are Home Depot and Dollar Tree.

More than 90% of Fairfield residents are Black, one-fifth live in poverty, and 15% are seniors. The city is home to Miles College, a private, historically Black college, and claims hometown status for actor George Lindsey who played Goober in “The Andy Griffith Show,” Temptations singer Dennis Edwards and former U.S. Senator Doug Jones.

When U.S. Steel opened a new $412 million electric arc furnace in 2020 after years of delays, it built outside the city limits, which means no boost for Fairfield’s tax revenue.

But 2022 brought some positive news. Last December, HarbisonWalker International, a company that produces fire bricks, reopened its former Fairfield plant with a $35 million investment to manufacture, service and distribute its products to steel customers. The Jefferson County Commission said in its 2023 operating budget that this brings 50 technician and staff jobs to the area.

And in July, just over three years after filing for bankruptcy, the city said in court filings that its financial conditions have improved. Fairfield asked U.S. District Judge Tamara O. Mitchell to dismiss the bankruptcy case.

“The cloud of bankruptcy has impaired the debtor’s ability to receive third party assistance towards the advancement of city planning and economic development,” the city wrote in its motion to dismiss.

It’s rare for local governments to file for bankruptcy. A report by Pew Charitable Trusts counted just 29 filings between 2001 and 2018.

The city also said that since filing for bankruptcy it lost revenue sources and hasn’t resolved its unpaid bills with creditors, including Parker.

Parker, who lives in Hoover, started working for Fairfield in 1990 as a police officer. If things had gone according to plan, he would have been able to retire in 2015.

But, he told AL.com that he got called into military service in 2004 and remained on active duty until 2017. In court filings, Parker said the city owes him nearly $139,000 in pension and retirement accounts.

A federal law called the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act of 1994 specifically protects employees who are called away to serve in the military or are part-time soldiers from discrimination, said Flynn Mozingo, an attorney with Melton, Espy & Williams, PC in Montgomery. Mozingo recently sued Hoover on behalf of four officers who took military leave. A federal appellate judge in June ruled in favor of the officers, who argued Hoover owed them the same holiday pay and accrued benefits as employees on paid administrative leave.

“If you get called away for active military service, the statute basically gets you those same benefits,” Mozingo said. “The fact that Uncle Sam called you away, the employer has to give you the same benefits, and, in fact, when you come back, the employer has to put you back into the same position.”

Mayor Eddie Penny, who has led the city since 2019 when the previous mayor was ousted from office, said in an email to AL.com that all creditors will be “addressed in court.”

“I have no details on what occurred in 2004,” said Penny, who previously served as the city council president. “Mr. Parker’s case will be settled in court.”

When Fairfield filed for bankruptcy, it said in court records that it had “exhausted its options” to find financial stability. Since then, nine creditors have filed claims to receive a total of nearly $2 million.

At the time, its largest creditor was U.S. Bank, which reported an $18 million secured claim in court records. Other creditors included Fairfield Board of Education, Alabama Power, Birmingham Water Works and Regions Bank.

The IRS filed a claim in the bankruptcy case, saying Fairfield owed more than $780,000 in unpaid federal taxes and interest as of this April. The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office, which started providing law enforcement services to Fairfield after it struggled to keep its own police force in 2019, said in court records that the city owes nearly $490,000. Another former employee filed a claim for $110,538.

Several other creditors, including the Birmingham-Jefferson County Transit Authority and First Insurance Funding Corp., sued the city several years ago over unpaid services, court records show. The results have been mixed; in some cases, judges dismissed them, ordered the city to pay up or put the case on hold until the bankruptcy proceedings get resolved.

After the city, some of its creditors, and an attorney for the IRS met for a late August hearing, U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Tamara O. Mitchell scheduled a new hearing for Monday at the Robert S. Vance Federal Building in Birmingham.

In August 2020, Ambac Assurance Corp., a finance guarantor for Fairfield’s taxes, filed a complaint via bankruptcy court – called an adversary proceeding – against the city and J.T. Smallwood, the Jefferson County tax collector, to recover its debt.

Fairfield has since proposed a settlement with Ambac and U.S. Bank, an intermediary party, to resolve its debts, per court records. On Sept. 1, Fairfield, Ambac and U.S. Bank signed and filed a joint motion to resolve its debts through that settlement. Its terms, signed by Mayor Penny and the other parties’ executives, allow for the city to pay the debt through tax revenue.

A hearing for that settlement is also scheduled for Monday, per the court docket.

How Fairfield plans to chart a path to financial viability in the face of millions of dollars of debt is unclear. At its City Council meeting on Sept. 18, a city official reported $1,653,862.35 in the bank, 65% of which has restricted uses.

Mayor Penny declined to explain his vision for the city’s financial future, citing the active bankruptcy case. Other city officials did not respond to requests for comment. Patrice Blankenship, one of the city’s attorneys, declined to comment.

After returning from active duty, Parker said he found a job teaching at Talladega High School to begin building up his retirement account. Now he’s working his sixth year as the senior army instructor for the JROTC program at Ramsay High School.

He said he’ll continue seeking what he says Fairfield owes him in bankruptcy court.

“They should make, at least an individual like me, whole from the time that I did serve with the city,” Parker said. “It was due to me. I can’t see why a judge or somebody would let them off the hook.”